Asterisk Magazine

Common Ground between AI 2027 & AI as Normal Technology AI 2027 and AI as Normal Technology were both published in April of this year.

Common Ground between AI 2027 & AI as Normal Technology

The Perplexing Appeal of The Telepathy Tapes

The Perplexing Appeal of The Telepathy Tapes

A Conversation on AI and Wealth Distribution

A Conversation on AI and Wealth Distribution

Is the Internet Making Culture Worse? The decline of criticism might explain the sense that our culture is stagnating. How can we bring it back?

Is the Internet Making Culture Worse?

You Aren't in the DSM Five editions on, the DSM shoulders more responsibilities than it was ever intended for. How did we get here?

You Aren't in the DSM

We're hiring a Managing Editor! Come work at the magazine that tries to put the scene and subcultures of America’s West Coast in conversation with themselves, each other, and everybody else.

We're hiring a Managing Editor!

The China Tech Canon How does the paideía of the Chinese tech elite differ from their counterparts in Silicon Valley?

The China Tech Canon

How Co-Ops Electrified America In the 1930s, private utilities balked at the task of bringing electricity to rural America. A New Deal agency figured out how to do it more quickly and more cheaply than anyone expected.

How Co-Ops Electrified America

Tripping Alone The clinical model of psychedelic therapy has become the default way to trip. What might we be missing as a result?

Tripping Alone

Why the U.S. is Behind in the AI "Race"

Why the U.S. is Behind in the AI "Race"

Why Governments Can't Count Counting every citizen is one of the most basic functions of the state. For much of the world, it remains extraordinarily difficult.

Why Governments Can't Count

The Demons of Non-Denoms Religion in America was once the domain of institutions. How did it grow to be dominated by cults of personality — and what can the process tell us about the rest of American culture?

The Demons of Non-Denoms

Introducing Asterisk's AI Fellows We’d like you to meet our first AI Fellows cohort.

Introducing Asterisk's AI Fellows

GDP: We Really Don’t Know How Good We Have It Everyone loves the hockey stick graph of long-run economic growth. For some, it's the basis of an entire worldview. Unfortunately, the numbers don’t add up.

GDP: We Really Don’t Know How Good We Have It

Nine Rules for Managing Humans Managing Nuclear Reactors

Nine Rules for Managing Humans Managing Nuclear Reactors

How to Vaccinate the World The world’s largest vaccine manufacturer — by far — is the Serum Institute of India. How did a struggling horse farm in Pune become one of the most important companies in global health?

How to Vaccinate the World

Reflections on Asterisk's AI Fellows Applications And why we still think you should start a blog

Reflections on Asterisk's AI Fellows Applications

Why Are There So Many Rationalist Cults? There’s a lot to like about the Rationalist community, but they do have a certain tendency to spawn — shall we say — high demand groups. We sent a card-carrying Rat to investigate what’s going on.

Why Are There So Many Rationalist Cults?

No Retvrn An American tradition of embracing modernity.

No Retvrn

Yes In My Bamako Yard Over the next 25 years, Africa is expected to add 900 million people to its cities, the largest wave of urban population growth the world has ever seen. How can the continent begin to prepare today?

Yes In My Bamako Yard

Scapegoating the Algorithm America's epistemic challenges run deeper than social media.

Scapegoating the Algorithm

The Asterisk AI Blogging Fellowship Apply at asteriskfellows.com/apply

The Asterisk AI Blogging Fellowship

Claude Finds God ✻[Perfect stillness]✻

Claude Finds God

Consciousness Catching Its Own Tail A conversation about predictive processing, insight, and existential threats — to the self and to society.

Consciousness Catching Its Own Tail

The Impossible Calculator Google Android’s calculator is (probably) the most widely used calculator in the world. It’s also the most advanced.

The Impossible Calculator

The Georgist Roots of American Libertarianism How did American libertarianism come to embrace Henry George, too?

The Georgist Roots of American Libertarianism

Knockout Mouse “Cancer is extremely varied and adaptive, and is likely the hardest of these diseases to fully destroy.” — Dario Amodei

Knockout Mouse

Brain Freeze The idea of cryonics — freezing the bodies of the dead in the hopes that they can one day be revived — has existed since the 1960s. We’ve since learned that perfect preservation is much, much harder t

Brain Freeze

The Origin of the Research University Universities have existed for more than a thousand years — and for almost all of that time, they weren’t centers of research. What changed in 19th century Germany?

The Origin of the Research University

The Universal Tech Tree When we try and pick out any technology in isolation, we find it hitched, in some way, to every innovation that preceded it. (Except for the Oldowan hand axe. We had to start somewhere.)

The Universal Tech Tree